The prior art provides numerous devices for installation on the edges of doors of buses and other mass transit vehicles. In general, they are suitable for use only on straight-side vehicles which provide doors with rectilinear surfaces for attachment of a door control device. There is currently a trend in the designing of mass transit vehicles to form the bodies thereof with curved side surfaces and doors of conforming configuration. For example, the outer skin of the sides and doors of modern vehicles commonly have surfaces which are outwardly convexed, or even of S-shaped cross section in the vertical direction, with the result that prior art emergency touch-sensitive door-opening mechanisms are not satisfactory if indeed operative for this type of use.
Hence, it is an important object of the invention to provide emergency door-opening mechanism on doors of mass transit vehicles regardless of door configuration or curvature. Another object is to provide door-opening mechanism in accordance with the foregoing object having a switch and switch-actuating assembly which may be inexpensively manufactured and preassembled in a form that provides easy insertion as a unit into a flexible housing of the mechanism, convenient replacement, and ready adjustment from exteriorly of the housing for operation.